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a1qa assists in maturing QA processes and delivering a high-quality staffing solution meeting tight deadlines
a1qa supported the client in streamlining their QA processes and elevating software quality.
Overview
The client is a well-known developer of a Salesforce-based cloud platform that simplifies the process of building a talent pipeline.
To accelerate time to market, improve the operation of the internal QA department, and ensure high software quality within strict release deadlines, the client required professional assistance of QA consulting and testing experts.
Services offered
QA consulting
Test automation
Performance testing
Compatibility testing
Functional testing
Project scope
The client’s customizable IT product offers AI-powered search, real-time dashboards and analytics, automated rescheduling, and resume parsing, helping recruiters quickly and effectively track the right candidates.
To help the client meet set milestones on time, a1qa:
Conducted QA consulting to find process bottlenecks and suggest suitable solutions
The client’s team is distributed across the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, and India. The IT department rapidly increased by 80 people, including QA specialists. The client aimed to improve operational efficiency and meet the high-pressure deadline.
To cut the distance, build stronger professional connections, and meet tight deadlines, the a1qa team visited the client onsite. During this visit, the experts spotted existing process flaws, their root causes and consequences, prioritized the order of fixing them as well as developed an implementation and maintenance plan.
As a result of thorough assessment, the a1qa team designed the improvements and a roadmap for their implementation as well as aligned them with the client. All enhancements were adopted step by step. a1qa’s engineers gathered feedback during retrospectives, set an example through the work of its team, and monitored the results of changes using a set of metrics for measuring the quality of software and working processes.
Trained the customer’s team to help their engineers apply best QA practices
To organize a more effective learning process, a1qa assigned 2 tutors from the in-house proprietary Academy. They were responsible for assessing the current skill level of 10 QA specialists, performing training sessions, teaching them how to apply obtained knowledge in practice, and checking the level of achievement afterward.
After identifying the knowledge gaps and QA background of the client’s engineers, the tutors organized a customized online functional testing course based on a1qa’s internal programs designed in the proprietary Academy. The tailored educational program comprised the following actions:
- Fulfill tests and technical tasks to define areas for improvement
- Perform five 6-hour practical-driven training sessions
- Conduct daily surveys to track intermediate progress
- Give presentations
- Conduct weekly tests
- Provide extra articles and videos for self-tuition
- Provide detailed ongoing feedback
- Carry out final assessment of teams’ skill level.
The engineers excelled at performing practical software testing tasks, started detecting more issues of diverse severity levels, and passed their theory test with flying colors.
As a result, QA consulting and training brought by a1qa contributed to achieving regular release cadence.
Carried out QA activities to ensure high software quality
To help the client meet tight release deadlines and ensure sound IT solution operation, a1qa fulfilled:
- Functional testing. Each time the developers created novel functionality, a1qa closely interacted with the client’s QA team and performed new feature testing and applied best practices for browser compatibility testing. As for regression testing, the engineers helped define the required scope depending on the changes that were to be made to the software.
- Test automation. Because of the way the test automation framework was designed, tests often failed, there were many false positives, and a lot of time was required to fix the problem. To accelerate time to market and cope with a large regression testing scope, a1qa’s experts reengineered a Java-based test automation framework and updated the current automation scripts. As a result, the engineers reached a 3X faster testing time, so the QA process took only half the day.
- Performance testing. a1qa helped the client fulfill load testing under minimal, normal, and high loads to detect all bottlenecks and make sure the system could promptly carry out the expected number of operations per hour. The specialists analyzed the results and handed the data and recommendations over for fixing to the development team.
As a result, a1qa ensured strict compliance with set deadlines and helped to release top-tier software. What’s more, a1qa’s team identified business risks to establish quick problem-solving, ensured a timely process of informing all project stakeholders, constantly followed PDCA cycles, and implemented changes defined during the consulting phase.
The project continues up to now, and the client appreciates a1qa’s contribution to releasing an IT solution that appeals to a target audience.
Technologies & tools
- JIRA
- TestRail
- Fiddler
- DevTools
- Java
- Selenium
- Jenkins
- Docker
- Selenoid
- Apache JMeter
- Grafana
Results
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Accelerated time to market due to introducing test automation that contributed to a 3X faster testing time.
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Improved software quality thanks to eliminating issues that could negatively affect the proper operation of the delivered product.
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Enhanced organizational performance due to effective training sessions, QA consulting, and the establishment of QA processes.
In numbers
2-8
QA experts involved based on the project stage
3
years of the project duration
3X
faster testing time due to test automation